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Despite what you might read in these pages, most bus journeys are incredibly dull. So, to liven up those long, monotonous shifts, I have invented a bus driving game for my own pleasure - "Wobble Head". It's quite simple to play, just accelerate the bus to about 30mph and jerk the steering wheel a few inches to the left, straighten up, then jerk a few inches to the right. Seeing thirty skulls bobbing to and fro has a delightful slap-stick quality which has me howling in the cab every time. It's a bit like watching a tennis crowd at Wimbledon, except I know that it's always me scoring the aces.

Another good use for Wobble Head is keeping drunkards awake when you see them sliding down their seat into a coma. Most driver hate the high jinx involved in rousing a sleeping oaf at the terminus, so a few sharp Wobble Head jerks along the road can be as good as if you had slipped a Pro-Plus into their beer yourself.

Tonight, I was Wobble Heading out of my skin in order to keep an inebriated dullard from going under. He was an older geezer who had been a complete bastard since getting on my bus at Gallowgate. After snatching his ticket from the machine, he knocked on my bandit screen and said, "Hey, driver! Have the fuckin' decency to wait 'till I sit doon, will ye?! That last driver I got just shot away an' made me fall o'er an' I nearly broke ma fuckin' ankle!"

I just stared at him. This unkempt yo-yo was in his late fifties and looked as though he had just been spat out of a tornado. Everything was everywhere; wild hair, wild eyes, and if his soiled attire was anything to go by, a wild fancy for bog-snorkeling. Everything about this scruffy little rumpler reminded me of the devastation I beheld after my house was ransacked by burglars. It's not often you meet someone who's appearance makes you want to cancel your credit cards and get a rotweiler. But everything really was everywhere. Alcohol had clearly befriended this guy, gained his confidence, then flipped him upside down and shaken him mercilessly by the ankles.

Despite waiting until he was safely seated before I moved off, Mr Twister immediately shuffled himself back down to my cab for another blast of hot air. "What is it wi' all youse bus drivers?" he shouted.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"See that stoap where I got oan back there?"

"Yes."

"Last week when I got the bus from that stoap, a wee wumin' got oan there wi' her wee dug. But the driver comes oot an' says, 'Hey! Ye can'nie bring that dug on tae the bus withoot a leash!' But the wumin' says, 'It's only a nice wee doggie an' it'll noe bite anyone!' But the driver says, 'Noe! Get yer dug aff the bus!' So the wumin' comes doon the bus and spits right in the driver's face! I mean right in his fuckin' face! The driver says, 'Get tae fuck ya' durty bitch!' and the wumin' runs aff the bus. Then the driver goes, 'Right! That's me been assaulted! I'm goin' aff ma shift! Everybody get aff the bus!' and he paps everybody aff the bus at the side o' the road and drives away! I thought that wuz fuckin' bang oot of order! Is he allowed to dae that?"

"Well," I said, "if I came into your work and spat in your face, what would you do?"

"I don't work, I'm on incapacity! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Just as I was about to get really sarcastic, I became somewhat distracted by a flash of headlights in my mirror. A ned-mobile had pulled up next to me at the traffic lights, blaring those awful smurftastic chipmunk tunes. All four neds had KFC bags on their knees, but instead of munching on their tasty nuggets, they appeared to be nibbling on the paper bag that contained said nuggets. What were they up to?

"Well, I think it wuz bang oot of order what that fuckin' driver done!" protested Mr Twister as he tottered away up the bus.

Just as the traffic lights turned green, the neds intentions became clear. The little bastards used their straws as blow-pipes to fire wet blobs of chewed up paper at my cab window. Then, with a snorty laugh and a wheel spin, they were gone.

"The wumin shouldn'ae huv spat in the driver's face, but for fuck's sake, he shouldn'ae huv papped us aff the bus!" muttered Mr Twister, still seething. "He wuz just bein' a bastard! That's all there is tae it!"

Mental note: keep cab window shut at night as well as daytime. It seems that when the water baloon hurlers clock-off, the blow-pipe spitters take over.

Next time I checked my CCTV monitor, I found Mr Twister seated but slouching down lower and lower. I tried everything to stop him from losing consciousness, but despite all my best Wobble Head antics, not to mention deliberately striking kerbs and flying through a roundabout at thirty-five miles per hour, the bastard was now snoring into his belly button. Damn it!

I did not relish the prospect of trying to awaken this grouchy old dreg at the terminus. God only knows how he might react. When a filthy grenade lands next to you, your natural instinct is to run away, not poke it. So I resorted to slightly more aggressive tactics; I slammed on the brakes, hit the accelerator, then slammed on the brakes again. Despairingly, this just made him slouch further down his seat. Bastard! I tried again, harder, but I must have been a bit too violent because next time I checked the CCTV monitor, he had disappeared!

If knocking him off his seat could not rouse him then I had to hold my hands up and admit defeat. Rigour mortise had obviously set in faster than I thought. This meant that when I finally arrived at the Ballieston terminus, I had to get out my cab, walk up the back to where Mr Twister was lying on the floor and just boot him awake.

"Whu? Humph! Fk! Buh!" and many other poetical abstractions were articulated.

"Wakey! Wakey! You're at the terminus!"

"Huh? Where's that?"

"Caledonia Road."

"Where's that?"

"Ballieston."

"DON'T YOU FUCKIN' FANNY ME ABOOT!" he shouted, pulling himself up. Now, Ballieston is hardly Oz, but Mr Twister looked every bit as traumatised as Dorothy waking up to an orgy of munchkins and giant lollypops.

"I'm not fannying anyone about," I said. "I'm due back at the depot in fifteen minutes, you'll have to get off here and wait for the next bus."

"FUCK OFF! I'm noe standin' oot there in the dark on ma tod! You can take me back tae Parkheid right noo!"

"I'm not going anywhere near Parkhead. I'm going 'not in service' down the motorway. This is the end of the line, you'll have to get off."

"I'm noe goin' anywhere!" he barked, and flumped down in a chair and folded his arms.

"Are you not getting off?"

"NOE!"

"Fair enough," I said and put the bus into gear. I drove him round the Ballieston loop, up to the main road and parked the bus right across from the police station.

"Oh, so you've brought me here, have ye?" he said with a discernible tremble in his voice.

"Aye! Unless you get off, I'm going to honk my horn and two cops are going to come out and take you away."

"Noe! Don't, driver! Don't hit yer horn!" he yelled with increasing panic. "I cannae be seen wi' them! Driver, I'm a grass!"

"You're a grass?"

"Aye! I'm a grass! I tell 'em things! I can'nae be seen talking tae them here! I'll get murdered if I'm seen talkin' tae them!"

So, Mr Twister was a police informant! A back stabbing, eaves dropping deep throat who would gladly see his associates banged up for the price of a few bottles of whisky. Well, I'm glad to see the cops are using credible and reliable sources of intelligence to fight crime in our neighbourhoods. I can just imagine it:

"Constable! Has our informant given us any information about the murder?"

"Yes, sergeant! He said the murderer lives: 'On [burp] street.'
The motive was: 'Think I've just shat ma troozers.'
The body was dumped at: 'Noe, it's alright, I've just pissed ma pants [hic]'
and the murder weapon used was: 'Seriously, mate, get us a bucket.'

Well, I for one can sleep better at night for that.

I couldn't resist playing with him a little before I let him go. Never before had I considered my bus horn to be a minister of death, but just to freak him out, I tapped it lightly with my fist, just enough to make it 'meep' a few times. Again, his reaction was all munchkins and lollipops. But, I think if a bus driver held my life in his hands, mine would be too.